MEDINA, Ohio – Ed FitzGerald equates the path to the November election with a retailer’s return counter. Voters, the Democrat says, are lining up to make an exchange.

Republican Gov. John Kasich, whom FitzGerald is working to unseat, doesn’t deal in such analogies. Nonetheless, the final State of the State address of his first term was the equivalent of hopping on the in-store intercom to make a case for four more years.

Kasich’s speech was not overtly political. He has yet to utter FitzGerald’s name in public, let alone engage the Cuyahoga County executive directly, and he wasn’t about to start here Monday. But as far above the fray as Kasich hopes to appear, it’s impossible to evaluate his remarks outside the context of his campaign for a second term. It’s almost as tough to consider them outside the context of a possible run for president in 2016.

Besides, the State of the State is traditionally a political spectacle, made more so by Kasich’s decision two years ago to take it on the road to Ohio’s in-between areas.

With that in mind, here were some of political highlights:

Are you listening, Washington?

Kasich and his aides say often that he’s not focused on future political pursuits. But this line will keep tongues wagging about the former congressman’s White House ambitions.

“Washington is broken,” Kasich said early on at Medina High School’s Performing Arts Center. “Sometimes I wonder if it’s even on the same planet as the rest of us.”

The governor, as he has done in the past, presented Ohio as a model for the nation, asserting that the Buckeye State is setting an example for fiscal responsibility.

He held back, though, on the “Ohio miracle” talk he indulged in when the state’s jobless rate was below the national average. “We have much more to do,” Kasich said, “but because of what we have already accomplished, today I can say that the State of the State is stronger, more hopeful, more optimistic, more excited and more confident.”

The conservative governor gained notice last year for his shift to the center, the prime example of which was expanding Medicaid and appealing to Christian compassion.

It only was the biggest policy initiative Kasich pursued in 2013, set in motion with his budget and last year’s State of the State. But Kasich danced around it Monday night, sticking instead to the broader themes of helping “those in the shadows.” He also reaffirmed his commitment to fighting drug addiction with education and treatment.

Also unsaid was Kasich’s support for higher taxes on oil and gas companies looking to capitalize on Ohio’s fracking boom. But it very much remains part of his agenda as a means to fund more income tax cuts. Kasich wants the state rate below 5 percent.

“We took some big steps last year, especially in health care, and the reason for much of what we’re proposing this year is so we can continue to do more,” Kasich said in his sole poverty reference. “But let’s be clear. It’s going to take all of us, not just the government, to make progress, and we’ll have much more to say on this in the coming months.”

The crux of Kasich’s speech – and his re-election argument – is that he inherited a state reeling from recession and turned things around while cutting income and business taxes. FitzGerald will push on this point aggressively, arguing that the budget was balanced on the backs of local government and those Kasich professes to want to help.

The governor name-checked Jackson and praised him for his dedication to school reform. But Kasich also had a shout-out for Columbus Mayor Michael Coleman, another big-city Democrat but one who, unlike Jackson, has not endorsed FitzGerald. Kasich has worked with Coleman on a school transformation plan similar to Jackson’s in Cleveland.

“I love Michael Coleman,” he said, “and we’re working with him to bring about reform.”

Opponents added to the political theater.

More than 100 organized laborers and Democratic allies staged a large protest outside Medina High School. Many waved signs blasting Kasich’s job-creation record.

“This is what democracy looks like,” they chanted on cue – a throwback to the demonstrations in 2011 against Senate Bill 5, a Kasich-backed measure that weakened collective bargaining for public employees. Voters repealed the law at the ballot box.

Tom Byers, president of a United Steelworkers local in southeast Ohio, hammered Kasich with an argument now key to the FitzGerald campaign: That the governor could have done more to prevent the closing of the Ormet aluminum plant in Hannibal.

Kasich's aides have said it would have been inappropriate to intervene in what boils down to a public utilities issue.

Meanwhile, the Ohio Democratic Party sent a mobile billboard – featuring a head-in-hand Kasich and a sampling of job numbers – to circle the high school campus.

FitzGerald sent his response 4 ½ hours before Kasich began speaking.

As is common in the theatrics that surround State-of addresses, the opposing team crafted its response before even hearing a word of Kasich’s speech. FitzGerald’s campaign press secretary emailed reporters a copy of his “response” at 2:30 p.m., asking that it not be shared publicly until the governor was finished speaking that evening.

On one hand this saved reporters the hassle of tracking down FitzGerald later, while on deadline. On the other, it illustrated how FitzGerald wasn’t really interested in commenting on the content of Kasich’s speech. He was sticking to his own message.

“Some of what the governor said sounds reasonable and some pieces we even agree on, but, as is too often the case, what this governor says he will do and what he has done are worlds apart,” said FitzGerald – before he actually knew what Kasich had said.

“This governor,” FitzGerald added, “points with pride to how he balanced his budgets, but he is counting on Ohioans to forget that he balanced those budgets by shifting the financial burden to the middle class and already suffering communities.”

Seymour Avenue survivors brought a rare moment of bipartisanship.

In a speech that played out on the heavily partisan terrain of a re-election year, Kasich ended his speech on a moment that had even FitzGerald’s campaign saluting on Twitter.

By awarding courage medals to Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight, the three women rescued last May after nearly a decade of imprisonment in the Cleveland home of Ariel Castro, Kasich ushered in the longest standing ovation of the night.

It was a respite, however brief, from the political pie fights to come now till November.

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